Month: November 2014

The end. Please free-write about what you’ve done this month, and the past year.

This month was going okay until I see a FB this morning that a friend with MS from the OD days had lost her husband unexpectedly. There’s just nothing I can say, really.

I don’t know that there’s a good way to describe this year, either. Things began with some hope of normalcy, albeit almost no money. I went to Shmoocon. Listened, wrote, participated. Got home, tried to enjoy the rest of a long weekend, went to work, and got laid off. This was after I went to Shmoocon following assurances that funding for my position was good through the rest of the year. I have no words for the people and companies responsible.

I still have a lot of things to offer, a lot of things I can do. Being cooped up in an office every day isn’t really one of those things. Considering that I’ve now finished this, writing is one of them.

I actually did take advantage of a “Black Friday” deal, in hopes of getting closer to that goal. Yesterday, for “Small Business Saturday,” I went and spent money at three local small businesses.

Yes, it was stuff I probably normally would have bought, anyway. A haircut and beard trim. Stuff from the pharmacy. A locally-brewed beer while I waited for dessert to-go.

Still, it’s a conscious rejection of cookie-cutter suburbia. I can’t think of a football game that’d make me want to stay at $wing_chain_restaurant longer. Barely-edible wings. Lousy beer. Sports. Yep, that’s the place for me!

My wife and I, as she’s been working on a paper about corporate finance shenanigans, have been discussing the excesses of Wall Street. The Occupy kids never quiet got it; Wall Street’s excesses were largely and the behest of their parents’ fund managers. Being able to keep investments in smaller companies offers so many possibilities. Not only to make money on those investments, but to support companies who act responsibly, and share the investors’ values.

Instead of meandering too much, I think I’m going to cut things off here. Four years of NoJoMo finished. A second Movember finished, and I’ll be keeping it through Christmas.

I’m trying to remember what sparked this prompt. Maybe it was just me looking for something to plug in after looking that the calendar. I have another prime number birthday before I become a man. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RjF93E4LjlA Thanks, coach. (And, I was going to say two, until I realized that 39 is divisible by three….)

Today is “Small Business Saturday.” After my body is ready, I’ll go shop some at my favorite small businesses. First stop is getting my hair cut, and facial hair trimmed. Then to the pharmacy. Then….? Maybe lunch at the brasserie across the street. Sadly, my friends in the grocery store across the street are gone.

Today is “Black Friday.” Is this just a gimmick? Will you be shopping for $religious_observance?

Yes. Probably not much. After this hellacious year, I really don’t have any money to spend. That I bought myself a new laptop for the first time in seven years a couple of months back didn’t help that.

I also haven’t gotten the balance I still owe on my MRI back in October, either. Hopefully, the added expense of my new insurance policy will take some of the cost off of that next year.

I like my current insurer, but that policy won’t be renewed. *cough*thanksObama*cough*

I did put up a Black Friday post on the ITS757 site. I’ve decided to renew the business license for next year. Maybe customers will start flowing in. The sorts of stuff I’m doing at this temporary job are giving me some more ideas. It’s incredible how much money’s been spent on this stuff I’m manning, when it could probably done better…with a lot less footprint. “But you might break something!!1!”

*sigh*

But I am going to focus on shopping small. I’m really happy to see some progress made on a fellow Hatch member’s project. http://www.craftysnorfolk.com I tweeted to see if they’ve got anything for Saturday. No response yet, but, holiday.

So, early post today. Two more days, then I’m finished. While there’s some relief in that, , I feel like I’m just starting to regain my stride when it comes to writing. I have a lot to say, even if nobody’s reading it.

It’s not even 8am. I woke up because I needed to take my morning medications, and I was cold.

We are headed to my mom’s house this afternoon for Thanksgiving dinner. My wife wants to watch the Macy’s parade, so we won’t head north until after that’s over. Unfortunately, that means I’ll probably miss a lot of the one game on that’s worth watching today.

We are going to my mom’s because she wanted to cook, and my brother moved to Dallas over the summer with his wife.

Also, what the fuck, NFL? Six NFC teams? Part of the draw of Thanksgiving football has always been that one game was a conference rivalry (often in-divsion), and one cross-conference game. Lett us not forget Leon in the snow at Texas Stadium.

I guess my brother is going to the game with his Cowboys’ fan wife. I can’t say I’m envious, really.

So, four days off, which I seriously need. Four days to finish up this edition of NoJoMo.

At this point, there’s very little I know for certain. There are some facts that’ll affect what happens, but I don’t know the actual course of events.

1. I guess I’ll try to get a Shmoocon ticket. Not terribly amused by their response when I asked how a half-blind guy could get a ticket. Oh, we can pair you up with someone else. Okay, I migh tsee if my wife could help, too. Oh, if your wife is going to help you, kindly go fuck yourself. Thank you!
2. Continuing my three-pronged pushes — ITS757, GS Job, and civilian job(s). The third prong, obviously, includes the crappy situation I’m in right now.
3. ???
4. Profit

Things are still very much up-in-the-air, unfortunately. Maybe something good will happen.

Describe your travel plans for the next few months. Is there any destination you’re really excited about? Any you’re dreading?

I currently have no firm travel plans over the next couple of months. If I somehow manage to score a Shmoocon ticket, I will go to DC for that, and likely take my wife with me.

Otherwise, there’s nothing.

I don’t know why I asked if there was a dread-worthy trip. October seems like last year to me, now. Maybe dreading funeral trips for relatives who weren’t doing well at the time. Who knows?

At the same time, it feels like I’ve been on the road for months, now. I sleep at my mother’s place the night before I’m at my office, then figure out how to get home on nights when I don’t have work the next day.

For the money I’m earning, I couldn’t more strongly recommend against it.

The preceding missive was written as decompression, but it’s still true for the most part.

How the fuck did I wind up like I am? I don’t think I did anything wrong, but I clearly didn’t suck up to the right criminals. So I get cast aside, only to be drawn back in for a pittance.

Write a bit about why you’ve chosen to write this (and past) years. How many years have you been at it? Art you satisfied with what you’ve written this year? In past years?

I’ve chosen to write, because I think the physical act of doing it keeps me on schedule. With so few things in my life actually being in sync at this point, thi sis something. the concept of a “normal day” has eluded me, completely.

And I’m a bit okay wiht that. I really don’t ever want to get into a routine wiht what I’m doing now; this shit sucks,

Maybe it’s slightly hypocritical of me to say that, when what I’m trying to ram down unwilling throats at work is standardization. I also want to measure how long it takes someone to run through those procedures, and how many errors they make along the way.That’s doubly-threatening. First, that anyone would dare analyze what people are doing to do their jobs is taken as an affront. That they’re being critical because of process tedious

But I keep doing it because it will give me a small sense of accomplishment when I’m finished. What did you do this November? Oh, I grew a beard, and wrote every single day. I also didn’t outright quit a job I loathe. And you?

“We know the requirements.”
So fucking write them down. (And do you have a tapeworm?)

Sealing your fate, there, guy.

I apologize for the rambling. As I said yesterday, I’m really past my breaking point. I could whine about it being unfair, etc., but I won’t. At the end of the day..the sun goes down in the West. And I can look at myself in the mirror, in spite of my failing eyesight.

No, I’m not going to South Carolina, though I do have family there, and have been a few times.

So, what have I done this weekend? Pretty much exactly what I said I was going to do.

The next three days, I will try to continue doing the work I’ve been doing. I’m hoping for some clarity about what’s going on; big changes are afoot. I don’t think a lot of people understand them.

The bottom line is I’m still the FNG. The entrenched staff still haven’t wrapped their heads around how things are going to change. “It’s a customer requirement!!1!” Okay, who signed off on it. “Just do it.” To quote one of my wife’s songs, “fuck you very very much.”

To put it succinctly, I know different ways to do the things you want to do, but I can’t do it within the ball of dysfunction you’ve given me to work in. Yes, Agent Fleming, I know I shouldn’t end a sentence in a preposition.

In short, I’m really at my breaking point, don’t undestand what’s taking so long for something else, and am unwilling to do anything untoward — to GTFO of my current situation, or to make people happy by doing what I know, and can show, is wrong.

November 22nd is a big day for a graying segment of the population; calculate your age for that particularly bad day in Dallas, and describe the most important President of your lifetime.

I was -16 when Kennedy was assassinated. So, biologically, half of me existed. The other half wouldn’t be produced until years later. The current President was only a year old. This has little significance for probably the majority of Americans today. It’ll be less and less relevant as time goes on.

As for the most important President of my lifetime, I keep going back to George HW Bush. More and more I realize how little the Boomer Presidents have actually done for the country. The political unpopularity of some of the smart fiscal things he did, along with the “little Admiral,” cost him re-election in 1992, unfortunately. I actually work with people now who were born after he was President.

The weekends sort of allow me to recuperate. The stupid burns so fucking much sometimes.

I finally got what I was working on to work. Sorta. After peeling back twenty year-old layers of brokenness.

“Do what the customer wants.”

Uh, the customer doesn’t want to get into trouble, and if you just fucking do what the customer wants, he’s going to get in trouble.

Apologies for the aside. I have no idea what I’m going to be doing Saturday, other than hitting the wine store to buy something for Thanksgiving dinner. The annual downtown lighting ceremony is that night, so I don’t think we want to be out and about. Not that I ever want to be out and about anymore, but….

And I didn’t have the part about how my year went drafted as the day passed. But, is there a more concise way of saying, “Fuck no?”